After some time had passed, the dust and the violent remnants of mana finally cleared from the surroundings.

Kira stopped crying. Her face was deathly pale as she looked at her fallen companions.

As she stared at them, their lifeless bodies began to shine. They slowly disintegrated into microscopic pieces of light, vanishing entirely into the air. She turned to look at the rest of her team, but the same thing was happening to everyone. Their physical forms were dissolving into the atmosphere.

She had wanted to bury their bodies so she could respect their sacrifices, honor their lives, and pray for their well-being in their next life.

But this was a cruel phenomenon unique to the Ascension Realm: after someone died here, their body disintegrated into the air.

The World wouldn’t let their remains exist once they no longer mattered to the realm’s living cycle.

Kira stared blankly as the last shimmering remains of Lina slowly disappeared into nothingness. She stood alone in the empty, cratered clearing.

Suddenly, several familiar voices echoed in her mind.

"Captain, did you know I just cooked some pork?... Come on, let me give you a taste! And of course, I tasted it myself first. Don’t worry, it isn’t bad like last time when it tasted like shit! Hehe..."

"Hey! Let me eat some too... I’m hungry!" Alfred’s voice complained.

"Nope! You won’t get any! I just made this for the two of us. Get lost!" Lina yelled back.

"Ugh! Damn woman!"

"Sigh... These children always make the surroundings so loud," Siar muttered.

"Hehe... Don’t you actually like their bickering, Siar? That’s why you always focus on them," Bram chuckled.

As Kira remembered their time together, she closed her eyes and swallowed her sadness. A final tear fell from her right eye.

She wiped the tear away, stood up straight, and opened her eyes with a new conviction. She would not sit here and let her life go to waste.

Her ultimate goal was to climb the Ascension Realm. If she stayed here and succumbed to her feelings, it wouldn’t do her any good. She had to stand up and keep walking to push through this hell and reach the absolute end—a peak no one had ever been able to achieve.

She looked around the silent clearing, but a sudden doubt surfaced in her mind.

"Why hasn’t the trial ended? The System should have already notified us that the trial is complete."

"The boss monster is dead! So why?!"

She felt extremely confused as to why the exit gate hadn’t appeared. Was there something else she had missed?

"Where is the boy who was with us?... Is he still alive? I hope he is at least alright..."

She looked over at Maira, her only remaining companion.

"Maira, are you alright? Is everything fine?"

Maira slowly turned toward her. "Everything is fine, Miss. But I feel like we should leave this clearing. It gives me a very bad feeling to stay here any longer."

Kira nodded.

"Yes, we should leave. But first, let’s find the boy. We have to check if he is still alive. I hope we find him safe."

Kira and Maira started walking together. They walked silently, stepping through the broken, shattered remains of the lesser undead. Some were half-disintegrated, while others had only limbs left behind.

The number of undead monster corpses laying on the ground steadily increased the further they walked. A thick fog covered the area where the bodies lay, making it difficult to see through the trees.

After walking quite a distance, Kira suddenly halted.

She stared at a sheer, massive amount of undead bodies piled on the ground. At the very center of the carnage was a large mound of corpses, stacked high to create a gruesome throne. And sitting cross-legged right on top of the pile was the silver-haired boy.

His eyes were closed in deep concentration. The ambient mana in the surroundings was slowly being sucked directly into his body.

Kira stared at him in awe.

’Sigh... so he is alright. Judging from the sheer number of undead he killed all by himself, it seems he is much stronger than I actually imagined.’

’Is he preparing for a breakthrough? I have to cover him so his advancement goes smoothly.’

...

Deep inside his inner sanctum, Alen was entirely focused.

He absorbed the atmospheric mana slowly, pulling it into his core. As the amount of mana inside him reached a critical mass, his core began to crack slightly under the pressure. A rush of pure energy flooded out, immediately coating the cracked portions and expanding the core, greatly increasing its overall size and density.

[Ding! Breaking through the limits of the D+ Rank...]

[Ding! You have successfully broken through to the C- Rank!]

[Ding! All of your stats have been significantly increased!]

[Ding! Your mana capacity has been significantly increased!]

[Ding! Your ’Nexus Elemental Art’ has evolved into (B-) Rank!]

...

As the sound of the system notifications flooded his brain, he felt his newly expanded mana core completely fill with power.

Alen slowly opened his eyes.

He stared blankly into the forest for a minute as he adjusted to the feeling of being several times stronger than before. His body felt incredibly light and packed with explosive power. He felt like he could easily crush a boulder with a single punch. He felt like he could run for dozens of kilometers without feeling even the slightest bit tired.

As he stared at his hands, a voice suddenly snapped him out of his quiet state.

"So, it seems you are finally done."

Alen looked down from his pile of bodies at the two women standing in front of him. It was Kira and Maira.

"Yeah... it seems so," Alen said, hopping down from the mound.

"How about you? Were you able to beat the boss? And where is your team? Can we get out of this place now?"

Kira looked at him, her face shadowed with deep sadness.

"...My team is dead. They were killed during the fight with the Undead Knight... I managed to kill it in the end... but no one except Maira and me made it out alive."

She clenched her fists.

"And the worst part is, even after defeating the final boss, the gate to transfer out of this dimension hasn’t appeared."

"I don’t know what to do... If we can’t figure something out soon, we are stuck here forever..."

Alen looked at her with a blank expression as he registered what he had just heard.

’Her whole team got wiped out in the battle? Just how strong was that boss originally? And how did she even manage to defeat it by herself then?’

’Sigh... I feel pity for her.’

As he stared at the cratered ground behind her, he couldn’t help but feel a genuine pang of sadness. They were a good team. If they hadn’t been present, he wouldn’t have learned anything about the rules of this place. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

They had given him ’hope’ that he could leave this realm. But now they were dead, and their laughter had forever ceased to exist.

"Sigh... But why didn’t the exit gate open?" Alen asked.

"Did the Ascension Realm malfunction?"

Kira shook her head firmly.

"No. It’s almost impossible for such a thing to happen. I’ve never heard of the system malfunctioning like this."

Alen nodded. He stared blankly at the ground in thought for a few moments, putting the pieces together. The rules of the realm. The coordinates. The undeads and the Final boss undead knight.

Suddenly, he looked up at them. A small, confident smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

"I know how to leave this place."